+++++ Combat Bridge. (Sunday + 1)

Yui Ikari looked down, through a thick pane of transparent metal, upon a young man that was not who she believed she would be meeting this day. Each and every report she'd received indicated that he was, by nature, reserved. A quiet lad, who enjoyed music and learning. Agreeable, amenable, occasionally apathetic, but otherwise someone who eagerly performed tasks when presented with them. With her two closest confidants standing next to her, she released the button that would have transmitted her thoughts down to her son to ask in private, "Are we certain that is Shinji Ikari?"

"That's your son, Yui." Kyoko Zeppelin, who had been opposed to Yui leaving Shinji in someone else's care all those years ago, had run the tests herself. "The MAGI agree, with one hundred percent confidence, that Shinji Ikari is who is down there right now."

Naoko Akagi was admiring the view, noting those places where the son was quite different from the father. "This isn't striking me as the most joyous of reunions. The way he's staring up here I think he's waiting for you to return his greeting."

Restraining the urge to slap her friends for being less than helpful, she once again depressed the button to speak down to her son. "It is good to see that you were not overly harmed in the train crash. We were worried when we found you in a persistent unconscious state."

Shinji's response was, once more, lurking on the borders of disrespect. "I've survived worse. Is this what you brought me here for? To…'pilot' a big robot?"

Yui could feel that there was another word that he chose not to say after 'robot', and her scowl deepened as her confusion grew. "You are the only one capable of piloting it."

The border between polite and impolite crumbled violently. "Is this what it's like to feel needed? I had always wondered if it was as disappointing as I expected it would be."

Yui, once more, let go of the button. She could see Misato Katsuragi looking at her son with more than a hint of approval, Ritsuko Akagi looking off towards Unit-01 with a smirk, and Maya Ibuki looking down at her feet seeming to wish to be anywhere but where she was. Not only was this not the young man she expected to meet, this was not the way she had expected to be addressed. Before she could press the button again, Naoko caught her hand and shook her head subtly.

Kyoko took the opportunity to step in and attempt to salvage a worsening situation. "Guten Morgen, Herr Ikari. My name is Kyoko Zeppelin, and I wish to thank you for upending your life to come and fight for humanity's future."

"I would have had to have a life to upend for it to be something worth thanking me for, ma'am." His tone was able to recover enough to be polite to a woman he'd never met, from his perspective. "Hourly beatings here, hourly beatings there, it's just the scenery that's changing I guess. The fact that the ladies standing next to me haven't begun to hit me is frankly astonishing."

Removing her hand from the button, Kyoko's head slowly turned to look at Yui. She saw Naoko's lips puckered in the way they tended to when she was close to losing her temper, agreeing that anger was growing more likely as a response. It just wouldn't be Shinji they aimed it at. "Yui, my friend, perhaps we should leave the activation test to the younger Doctor Akagi. Naoko?"

"My daughter would be thrilled to perform the first activation while we…discuss recent discoveries." The elder Akagi was grateful that the room, other than the three of them, was empty. "I believe your words were something to the effect of, 'mild mannered'?"

"I know I remember replying with, 'It's usually the quiet ones you need to be most cautious of'." Pressing the button again, Kyoko engaged a seldom-used part of her repertoire, "It pains me greatly to hear that you were so poorly treated. As it seems that tempers are high, we will leave the activation test and follow-on coordination with the esteemed Frau Doktor Akagi, and Kapitänin Katsuragi. Leutnantin Ibuki, please be so kind as to remain with Herr Ikari as much as possible during the tests? I feel he might be well-served by your particular skillset."

When Kyoko let go of the button, Yui pressed the switch to polarize the glass and walked back to the chair she typically occupied. The one in a soundproof chamber well above the rest of the others, with two seats flanking it. "She swore to me that she would keep him safe." Sitting down, calmly, she placed her hands on the ends of the armrests and flexed her grip to stop from smashing something. "My own sister…lied to me."

+++++ Gantries near Unit-01. (Sunday + 1)

Shinji continued to glare up at the spot that had been occupied by his mother, his mind shrieking that he was about to be beaten within an inch of his life for what he'd just done. He'd spent so long suppressing the daydream of one day saying even a tenth of what he just had, and now all he could think of was that he'd just been robbed of the ability to get into the truly dark materials he had lying upon his soul. With his mind thus engaged, his mouth once more ran free, "I'm sorry, Katsuragi-san, Akagi-san, Ibuki-san. I allowed my emotions to overrun my sense, and I am prepared to accept the punishment for my actions. I was wrong, and you were right."

"There are roughly ten million different reasons I can think of to not put him in the giant death machine at the moment, Rits." Misato looked past Shinji to her longtime friend, begging for a hand in restoring order to the current environment. "What say we go do that dinner you promised him, then we can throw on a horrible movie and pretend that what just happened was a dress rehearsal for an upcoming improv?"

Ritsuko herself blew out a lengthy sigh. "I'd love to. But if this isn't going to work, knowing now will be better than not. Why don't we shelve the combat readiness tests, run a launch check on zero, and then after we do a basic attunement test with him in -01, we go get some dinner and see what comes of it?"

Shinji's mind chose that moment to catch up with the rest of him, and his head snapped to where he was looking down at his feet. "I-I'm sorry." Instead of the Pavlovian reflex of before, his statement bore the hallmarks of a conscious apology. "I'm…sorry. I thought I…I didn't…." Closing his posture off and taking a breath, he shook his head. "Let's go through whatever tests you originally had planned. She won't let me leave until she's satisfied…sensei told me as much."

"If you're implying that I'm eager to put an emotionally injured conscript in the driver's seat of a machine intended to go toe-to-toe with aliens the size of skyscrapers, I think you're crazier than I am." Misato moved in front of Shinji, gripping his shoulders and looking up into his eyes. "What you just said to your mother was pretty dark, Shinji. If I had anyone other than you that could pilot this, I'd never put you within a hundred kilometers of it. We still have people looking for our target, and we're still trying to understand our current situation outside. For now, all we need you to do is get in, get comfortable, and let us run some tests. We have the time to take, so let's take the time to do this right. If the enemy shows up in the next five minutes, the whole argument is pedantic anyway."

"Thank you, ma'am," Maya beamed a smile at Misato, relieved that someone was talking sense. "If you and senpai want to get up to the consoles, I'll walk him to the entry plug and get him situated in. I'll watch the tests with the engineers, so that I'm not in the way, and then I'll hurry back and help him back out."

"Sounds like an excellent plan, Lieutenant, make it happen." Misato freed one hand from Shinji's shoulder to clap Maya on the back. "C'mon, Rits. The sooner we knock this out, the sooner he gets to sample my cooking."

Ritsuko grabbed Shinji away from Misato, hugging him close and hamming up her dismay, "No! I just met him and you already want to poison him with that semi-animate waste you call food?!"

The action, and the statement, knocked more of the fugue off of him, allowing him to begin to process what was happening in greater detail. When Misato grew more animate herself, her head bobbing from side to side as she extolled the virtues of 'exploring new flavor combinations' and 'broadening his horizons with real food', he fought to suppress a chuckle. Ritsuko quickly shoved him towards Maya, bodily shielding him from Misato and ordering her to help him flee for the hills, leading to him laughing with both confusion and bemusement as Maya played up her part of heroic damsel. By the time they reached the lift that would take them up to Unit-01's head, Ritsuko and Misato were laughing with each other as they headed to the stairs that would take them to the command deck. With Maya holding his hand, and a small smile on his face, he asked what he thought was an important question, "Why…wouldn't she want me to be raised here?"

"I don't know," Maya answered honestly. "I'm relatively new here myself. I arrived a year ago, after finishing my accelerated university classes with GEHIRN. As long as I've been here, those two have been thick as thieves. Other than having to deal with the standard office nonsense, this really hasn't been a horrible posting."

He looked down towards her, finally consciously realizing that she still had his hand. "You seem like a nice person, Ibuki-san. I'm sorry that you're being forced to babysit me."

"Forced? Not really. Ordered? Only kind of. I'm here because I think it's important. You're the only…pilot for Unit-01. It seems, from what you've said and how you've carried yourself, that you've been abused most of your life. That makes it important for me to show you that not everyone wants to treat you that way. It makes it important that I give you something positive to fight for. By being here, where you can see me, I can help you keep everyone safe. Someone would have to be insane to expect you to fight to save the world if there wasn't anything here for you to fight for!" Grinning enthusiastically, she shrugged her shoulders and tilted her head to the side. "I'm not insane, but I am pretty darn silly."

They will, in turn, grant you gifts, boons, and companionship to varying degrees. Once more, he remembered something Qodeshah had told him. Once more, he was standing near a woman of true beauty, the beauty that radiated out from a heart that only wished to bring good into the world. "I…I don't think it's silly to want to keep people safe."

Her grin shifted to a pleased smile. "Neither do I."

"Didn't take you for the type of woman to mix business and pleasure, Lieutenant," a woman in an engineering outfit snarked from the platform attached to Unit-01. Leaning against the hatch for the entry plug, she raised an eyebrow to match her scowl. "Might as you have a few other more important things to do than ogling the only-"

"I'm not entirely sure who you are," Shinji was suddenly standing directly in front of the woman, his eyes pools of cold fire, "but I'll thank you to not be rude to Ibuki-san." Looming, despite the small difference in height, he felt anger boiling in his gut that someone would want to harm the woman behind him. "After all, 'Might as you have a few other more important things to do'."

"It's ok, Shinji-kun." Maya smoothed her hand along his arm, patting him on the chest to get him to back away from the engineer. "We're all a little wound tight right now. We haven't had much of a chance to discuss what's happening outside with you, but engineer-san isn't being malicious."

The engineer herself broke eye contact first, looking away towards the back of the stable. "Sorry, ma'am. I'm just wondering what happened to…my apologies."

+++++ Combat Bridge. (Sunday + 1)

"Oof." Misato watched the camera feed of the scene across from them. "We're going to have to get him to open up and let out some of this crap, or he's going to be one cross comment away from crushing people twenty-four seven."

"We have ways of improving his situation, don't worry. I'm already working up a medication protocol to smooth out the edges while we sic Maya on him." Ritsuko's hands danced across the keys, her attention split between dozens of different dilemmas without diminishing her capacity on any of them. "I hate to say it…well, no not really but I at least want to pretend I give a shit, we're lucky that it was the guys that disappeared and not us. Can you imagine Hyuga and Aoba trying to manage what she just did? From the feel of him, Shinji would have torn them apart."

Misato looked over to the screen dedicated to attempting to map the 'known world'. "If this pulse actually destroyed the Earth, except for Japan, and took every male along with it…I don't think 'lucky' is the right word to use."

"Meh. I maintain it is a lot easier to handle this situation than the reverse. According to the MAGI, the only women that were killed were those that died as a consequence of the earthquake deforming the environment. That still leaves several million wombs capable of giving birth. We find the reproduction clinics, dispense the sperm as appropriate, and monitor breeding for a few generations. The reverse? Far more likely with current technology that the only chance for mankind would be cloning, and that wouldn't be pretty." Tapping a few final keys as Maya climbed back out of the entry plug, leaning in and cautioning Shinji to relax and remain calm when the LCL flooded his capsule, Ritsuko sat back and prepared to monitor history in the making. "Besides, what kind of world would it be without a bunch of desperate, sexy women ready to explore the boundaries of human lust?"

"Some of us prefer the opposite gender, Rits."

"Some of us don't care about their gender."

+++++ Unit-01's Entry Plug. (Sunday + 1)

There was something off about the scent of the LCL. As Shinji watched it pool around his feet, climbing up towards his waist, he wondered if that smell was the LCL or just the fact that he hadn't showered. He never remembered smelling so…metallic, though. Hygiene was one of those things that had never been allowed to lapse, and the few times that the water went out…. "Blood?"

The speaker attached to his plugsuit, embedded in the wrist controls, responded in Maya's chipper voice, "Yeah, pretty much. Try as hard as we can, we can't get it to smell like anything but blood. Add too many chemicals, and your lungs will be processing things that would do irreparable harm to them. I know we just met, but I promise I wouldn't let them put you in there if the LCL was going to hurt you."

Mental note, I have a microphone attached to me. "I-I…uhm, was more questioning if that was what I was smelling, Ibuki-san."

"Just Maya, Shinji-kun. I'm not that much older than you, and it's silly to be so formal with how closely we're going to be working."

"As you wish." Following instructions, he took a deep breath before the LCL hit his mouth, waited until it filled past his hair, and then blew it out explosively. Sucking back in LCL was a horrifyingly strange sensation, but his body adjusted easily enough that the only harm was the taste. Forcing himself to breathe normally, he slowly reached equilibrium. "Can I still speak? Whoa."

Maya's voice now sounded odd, his ears not yet acclimated to the environment. "You can, and we'd prefer that you do if something feels wrong. Please don't silently suffer, ok?"

"Concur, Lieutenant." Misato's voice sounded from one of the internal speakers. "Pilot Ikari, I insist that if at any point you feel odd, in pain, or discomforted, you report it up the chain, ok? I only have one of you, and I can't get people to fix what I'm kept ignorant of."

"Y-yes, ma'am."

"Thank you. Turning you over to Science for the activation test."

Ritsuko was the next to speak, "Ok, Shinji. First thing I need you to do is let your mind relax. There are going to be some strange noises as the various neural links establish themselves, and then you're going to feel a sense of disconnection for a few moments. Stay quiet, stay calm, and when I ask you a question please answer honestly, ok?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Just Ritsuko, Shinji. Same thing Maya said."

"Psh, you're much older than Maya," Misato quipped.

"You shut your whore mouth, hag." The sound of a few snickers, possibly from either or both of the women on the bridge, made it clear that this was simply how they treated one another. "All right. Starting main sequence in three, two, one."

A riot of rainbow insanity swirled around Shinji. Audible color became visible taste before settling on tactile awareness of the world outside of Unit-01. Turning his head slowly to one side, he looked down the gantries towards the engineering bay. His eyes focused, and he saw Maya standing there with a worried frown. "…This is odd."

"Need you to use your big boy words, Shinji," Ritsuko sing-songed.

"Did I become…bigger? Am I Unit-01?" His head slowly drifted back towards the bridge, where he saw down Misato's tank top as she leaned over her own console to see what Ritsuko was seeing. "Or…is Unit-01…me?" There was an undeniable attraction to Misato present in his mind. It went beyond her womanly figure, which any man was far more likely to stop at once they saw her. She was confident, capable, and didn't place firm boundaries around her. He could sense, in her, that she wanted to be appreciated for what she accomplished, not what her father had done. That was the final thought he had as the world around him reverted back to its natural state.

Ritsuko's voice, though remaining calm, still conveyed urgency, "Maya I need him out of Unit-01 and in my lab five minutes ago. Take him straight into the showers, get the LCL off him completely."

The entry plug began to drain, and as much as Shinji wanted to question why he was suddenly being rushed out, he found it difficult to form the impulses to speak at all. "Wqxkr?"

"Silent strong type, Shinji. Stay the silent strong type." Her voice shifted pitch as she responded to a question he hadn't heard. "I don't know, mom, you tell me what you would have done different when the big number reaches over two hundred. You puzzle out the readings, I'm going to go make sure that I didn't just lobotomize Lionel Verney before he could even reach the second act and get jealous of a man who'll become his best friend."

The hatch opened up suddenly, the engineer from before hopping in and scooping him up gently. "Let's get you to medical, ok?"

Shinji's head flopped back, the metal cylinder in his neck causing a hint of discomfort. "Sjlka."

"Don't you fret none." Sending the lift downwards, she kept shifting her grip as the slick LCL caused a traditional hold to be tremendously difficult. "Lieutenant Ibuki's got a gurney inbound, and plenty of help getting it here. You just focus on breathing, ok?"

From the angle he was being held, he could see Maya sprinting down the catwalk towards where he'd arrive, a trio of burly women carrying a litter behind her. The amount of fear in their eyes, and the fire in Maya's eyes, caused a great deal of confusion in his mind. Why would they care? He was a machine. If a machine stopped working, you simply replaced a few parts and got it working again. "Rvmaw…."

The engineer managed to lift Shinji up and over Maya to set him down on the litter without the assistance the smaller woman intended to provide. "He's not speakin' Japanese, ma'am. I think he's tryin' to make words, but it's comin' out like when my ol' pappy had a stroke."

"That is part of what we're afraid of, yes." Connecting a few small sensors to his temples, she urged her escort to move cautiously. "Do not jostle him too much. Haste, not rush."

"Aye, ma'am." Taking up one corner of the litter, the engineer set the pace forward towards the gurney at the end of the hall. "Don't you worry none, sir. The ladies and I will get you there before you know it."

+++++ Ritsuko's Lab. (Sunday + 1)

"There are a number of answers to that, few I believe you would understand without significant amplification." Ritsuko was hurrying through getting an experiment ready, and she hated that her best chance at success was a blind toss of a coin when there were three possible outcomes. "I'm not trying to call you stupid, Misato, but you paid more attention to Ryoji's blood pressure than our biology classes. Trust that I know what I'm doing."

Misato itched to do something, anything, to help. She wasn't a 'watcher', she was a 'do things-er'. "Ok, then give me the answer that lets me not just stand here looking useless!"

Looking up with a smirk from her keyboard, still typing at her full speed, Ritsuko winked. "Oh, you'll never look anything but gorgeous and you know it. We've got this. When he gets here, help Maya get the LCL off him. The sooner he's free of it, the sooner I don't have to worry about contamination."

"I'm not exactly dressed for a shower."

"Then strip. I don't care. I doubt he'll care. I know Maya would love it."

"Rits."

"Not joking. Maya's had a crush on you for a year now, she's just too much of a goody-two-shoes to do anything about it." Finishing off the code, she set it to running and jogged over to prep the table she'd be working at. "In a coin toss between me and you, I'd win, but only because she prefers women who at least seem normal sometimes."

Misato blinked, then looked towards the door. "Wait…then why is she all blushing over him?"

"Same reason I can get you blushing by getting the girls out. Everyone's got their thing, babe. No shame in appreciating the art regardless of the frame. Door's about to open."

Dodging out of the way of the group of engineers, led by Maya, Misato frowned at the way Shinji seemed to want to say or do something, but couldn't quite understand why his body wasn't doing or saying it.

The engineer that she'd seen get into an argument with Shinji before backing off motioned for Maya to stay out of the bathroom. "We'll get him clean, ma'am. You go help Doctor Akagi. This is grunt work, not brain work."

"Mind if I join you?" Misato didn't leave room for anyone to argue, walking towards Shinji so as to make it clear that the engineer either moved or was moved. "I've got him, Maya," she called back over her shoulder just before the door slid shut, "they're right, go do the big brain things." Taking off her jacket, which had her important things in it, and hanging it over the top of Ritsuko's lab coat she rolled her sleeves up. "Ok, ladies. Press the blue button on the wrist to get the suit off."

The same engineer that had redirected Maya moved quickly to take Shinji's head and settle it in her lap after they'd settled him onto the ground next to a flexible shower head connected to a long flexible hose. "I'll keep his airway clear, and this…thing from touchin' the ground. Captain, could you give me a hand washin' this out of his hair?"

Two of the other engineers were helping get the plugsuit off of Shinji, the last was working to get the water a reasonable temperature so that they didn't freeze him or scald him, and Misato didn't recognize any concerning signs in them, allaying her fears that one or more of them might be interested in taking liberties with what was, to her knowledge, the last man on Earth. "Sure. I'll borrow some of Doctor Akagi's shampoo. Think he uses conditioner?"

"Never knew a man that did. 'Sides, doubt Doctor Akagi uses the good stuff anyway, her hair's always so messy." With a soapy washcloth, she was gently washing Shinji's face. "You remind me of my little brother, sir. 'Swhy I was so idgy with the Lieutenant earlier. Promise, we don't dislike you none."

And there was the final explanation she needed. Retrieving the shampoo that she knew was capable of stripping oil off of a car engine, she slipped over and put herself in the splash zone. She'd deal with it later. "He's a likeable guy." Settling on her knees, she upended the bottle and began massaging the gel into Shinji's scalp to work on the LCL. "He volunteered to do whatever we needed, despite not knowing why he'd come here. Argued that we shouldn't temper our plans because of everything that happened to him on his way here." Flashing her million-megawatt smile, she looked Shinji in the eyes and gave him a message that she believed he'd understand even if everyone else didn't. "Nobody here wants to hurt him, even if some things might on accident."